Is the EU complicit in the destruction of Cambodia’s forests?
Jack Davies
| 26th April 2018
The threat to our existence from the destruction of rainforests is well documented. And across the globe the battle to save them continues. JACK DAVIES reports on how the lush forests of Cambodia continue to suffer at the hands of the illegal timber trade

- The European Commission is busy negotiating a free trade deal with Hanoi - the result of which would be a radical reduction in the due diligence obligations of European businesses when importing timber and wood products from Vietnam.

Satellite imagery of Cambodia has rapidly turned from a lush green to a patchwork of muddy browns and yellows in the last 40 years. Almost all of the country’s once impressive rainforests have fallen victim to illegal logging.

While during the 1980s and early 1990s a large amount of wood left the country across the Thai border, in the 21st century the majority has fled east to Vietnam.

With the European Union currently negotiating a free trade deal for timber with the Vietnamese government, the volume of Cambodian timber turning up in Vietnam is increasing.

Illegal export of timber
A 2007 report by the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) found that Cambodia’s primary rainforest cover was down to just 3.1 percent from more than 70 percent in 1970. The Cambodian government outlawed the export of timber – not for the first time – in January 2016, after years of calls to take meaningful action by domestic civil society actors and international donors.

The proscription has done little to abate the decimation of Cambodia’s forests, though, and Vietnamese customs data digested by NGO Forest Trends suggest the felled forests have left Cambodia in ever greater numbers in the years since the ban.

Vietnamese customs registered the import of 310,232 cubic metres of Cambodian timber in 2016. Last year’s figures, released earlier in 2018, showed a 40 percent year-on-year increase to 435,764 cubic metres.

The combined value of the two years’ imports, according to the customs data, was $393.8 million. However, Phuc Xuan To, a senior analyst with Forest Trends, cautioned in emailed comments that “traders always undervalue [their wares] to avoid import tax”, implying that the true value of the looted timber is far and away in excess of the reported figure.
Full article: https://theecologist.org/2018/apr/26/eu ... as-forests

Enviromental NGOs call for EU not to sign timber deal with Vietnam
14 October 2018

A group of environmental NGOs has called on the European Union to postpone the signing of a trade deal on tropical timber with Vietnam until Vietnam declares a moratorium on illegal timber import from Cambodia’s natural forests.

Seven non-governmental organizations issued a joint statement on Wednesday, saying that there are serious flaws in the agreement because of continuous flow of illegal timber into Vietnamese market from neighboring countries, especially from Cambodia.

Ouch Leng, an environmental activist and chairman of Cambodia Human Rights Task Forces NGO, said the EU must not sign a timber trade agreement with Vietnam since Vietnamese timber traffickers are laundering illegal timber from Cambodia.

“The great destruction of Cambodia’s forests is also caused by the EU. It is clear that Vietnam has been smuggling timber from Cambodia for decades,” Mr Leng said, “It is difficult to defend because Vietnam has long had economic and political influence on Cambodia.”

“The EU must be clear with its willingness to protect forests and the environment,” he said.

The EU is scheduled to sign a Voluntary Partnership Agreement, a trade deal on timber with Vietnam under the European Timber Regulation (EUTR) and Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade (FLEG/T) process this month.

https://www.khmertimeskh.com/50540154/e ... h-vietnam/

EU forest agreement with Vietnam aims for ‘clean’ timber
Vietnam’s well-documented role in importing illegal timber, particularly from Cambodia, will be one of the big hurdles to be overcome
By Michael Tatarski November 17, 2018 1:46 PM (UTC+8)

The European Union has signed a controversial agreement to support Vietnam’s forest governance improvement goals, aimed at ensuring that the timber it imports from the Southeast Asian country is legally sourced.

The Voluntary Partnership Agreement (VPA) on Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade (FLEGT) was signed on October 19 in Brussels by Federica Mogherini, the EU high representative for foreign affairs, and Nguyen Xuan Cuong, Vietnam’s minister of agriculture.

The implementation of the VPA will involve multiple steps, according to Bruno Angelet, ambassador of the EU delegation to Vietnam.

“Currently timber and timber products exported to the EU from Vietnam are subject to the due diligence requirements of the EU Timber Regulation (EUTR), which prohibits placement of illegally harvested timber on the EU market,” Angelet wrote in an emailed response to Mongabay.

“They [Vietnam] will remain under the EUTR regime even after the ratification of the FLEGT-VPA until such time that Vietnam develops and implements the Vietnam Timber Legality Assurance System (VNTLAS) foreseen in the VPA.”

Vietnam now has to draft legislation to establish the VNTLAS, after which it and the EU will set up a committee to monitor implementation of the VPA.

Phuc Xuan To, a program analyst with Forest Trends, a Washington-based nonprofit, said he was hopeful about the impact of the agreement, but cautioned that major challenges remained.

“Vietnam imports 4-5 million cubic meters [141 million to 177 million cubic feet] of timber from more than 100 countries every year, consisting of 150-170 different species of timber,” he said in an interview. Vietnam has banned domestic logging and plantation-grown timber cannot meet current demand.

“Obviously some of the sources are high-risk,” Phuc said. “How will the Vietnamese government be able to control the legality of timber imported into the country? I’m not saying they won’t be able to do that, but implementing the VPA means they have to make sure that the mechanisms are established and in place to ensure that timber imports are legal.”
http://www.atimes.com/article/eu-forest ... an-timber/

European Commission gives boost to Vietnamese timber launderers
11 March 2019
Files obtained by New Internationalist show that the European Commission knowingly legitimized a Vietnamese government agency that facilitated the theft of roughly half a billion dollars of endangered species. Jack Davies reports.

A Vietnamese government agency that facilitated the theft of roughly half a billion dollars of endangered species was legitimized by a treaty signed by the European Commission last October. Files obtained by New Internationalist show the Commission decided to proceed with the treaty despite having been given evidence of the agency's actions at least two years earlier.

The agency in question is Vietnam’s management authority for the UN Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES). The job of every CITES management authority is to ensure the movement of any endangered species across their country’s borders is in accordance with CITES regulations – which in general means that they were legally and sustainably sourced.

This is ensured through a two-step process. Anyone wishing to move an endangered species across international borders must first seek approval from the local CITES management authority. The management authority will then perform an assessment of whether the export is convention compliant before issuing an export permit. The trader next presents the export permit to the management authority of the receiving country, who will make their own assessment of convention compliance, as well as emailing a copy of the export permit to the issuing management authority to verify its authenticity before themselves issuing an import permit.

Between 2013 and 2015, the Vietnamese management authority issued import permits for 8,533 cubic metres of Siamese rosewood – with an estimated market value of between $425-850 million – from neighbouring Cambodia that it indisputably had no legitimate cause to authorize. Not only is the dark hardwood all but extinct in Cambodia, its export was banned by a Cambodian government decree in 2013.

Markus Hardtke, a German lawyer and long-time environmental activist in Cambodia, described the Vietnamese management authority’s actions as the legalization of theft.

‘If I smuggled 500 luxury cars from Germany to Ukraine and in Ukraine the border guards legalized them… there would be outrage,’ Hardtke said. ‘We’re talking about a multi-billion dollar cross-border trade. It doesn’t matter if it’s trees, cars, diamonds or oil, this is an international crime, not a technical forestry issue.’

The European Commission, however, does not appear to share Hardtke’s outrage.

In 2010, the Commission began negotiations with the Vietnamese government for a forestry treaty known as a voluntary partnership agreement (VPA). VPAs are designed to bring non-EU countries’ forestry and timber regulations and practices in line with Brussels’ policy, known as the Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade (FLEGT) action plan.

The incentive for countries to complete this process is that, once compliant, it becomes much easier for EU companies to import their timber products. Any company wishing to bring timber products into the EU from countries that do not have a VPA must first conduct due diligence to ensure the legality and sustainability of its sourcing. Once a country achieves compliance, that due diligence is then entrusted to a ‘FLEGT licensing authority’ designated in the text of the VPA.

The licensing authority designated in the VPA signed between the European Commission and Vietnam was the latter’s CITES management authority, the same one that rubber-stamped the import of half a billion dollars’ worth of endangered and illegally traded timber.

The Vietnamese management authority insists it only issued the import permits because it had been presented with export permits issued by its Cambodian counterparts – which it then sent for verification to a Gmail address used by the Cambodian management authority.

PDFs purporting to be copies of those emails were shared with me by the Vietnamese management authority in 2016. The Cambodian management authority in turn denied their authenticity, describing them as the product of either forgery or hacking by ‘Vietnamese illegal persons’, or even employees of the Vietnamese management authority itself.

The Vietnamese have strenuously denied any such dirty tricks. However, regardless of whether they truly believed the emails allegedly originating from their Cambodian counterparts’ Gmail account were genuine, the Vietnamese half of the correspondence suggests a severe lack of diligence on their part.
Full article: https://newint.org/features/2019/03/11/ ... launderers

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